Takeo Doi

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Takeo Doi, Japanese psychiatrist (born March 17, 1920, Tokyo, Japan—died July 5, 2009, Tokyo), broke ground with his best-selling book Amae no kōzō (1971; The Anatomy of Dependence, 1973), as perhaps the first Japanese expert to analyze the Japanese idea of amae (“indulgent dependency”) and the first to exert wide influence on Western psychiatric thought. Doi graduated from the University of Tokyo (M.D., 1942) and taught there (1971–80) before becoming a professor (1980–82) at the International Christian University in Tokyo and later a special adviser to the Peace and Happiness Through Prosperity Research Institute. In 1950 he traveled to the U.S. to study psychiatry, and the culture shock he experienced prompted his investigation of the Japanese psyche. Doi’s groundbreaking theory centred on the concept of amae, which he defined as a culturally ingrained dependence on authority figures that retained a pervasive influence on all Japanese social structures. He further explored amae in later books, notably Omote to ura (1985; The Anatomy of Self: The Individual Versus Society, 1986).